


Not An Apple Pie Life Without You

by WhatIsAir



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Steve Is a Good Bro, aftereffects of said brainwashing/torture, bucky prefers being called james, bucky's terrible and inappropriate sense of humour, civil war spoilers, mild mentions of past brainwashing/torture, sam wilson is a gift to mankind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-08 04:17:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6838753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatIsAir/pseuds/WhatIsAir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We’re running out of time,” Steve says. Barnes’ hand hovers over Steve’s onion rings. “James, eat your own goddamn fries.”</p><p>“Yours are better,” Barnes mutters mulishly, but he retracts his hand and goes back to picking at his own food instead. (Sam absolutely refuses to find it cute.)</p><p>-CIVIL WAR SPOILERS DON'T READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE-</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not An Apple Pie Life Without You

There’s movement in the centre of the room, and Sam straightens, instantly more alert as Barnes stirs, blinking and surveying his surroundings. Sam watches as his gaze darts around the room, the small, high windows; the grubby, slate-grey warehouse floor. His left hand clenches where it’s caught between the metal compactor, and Sam wills himself to stand his ground when the grey-blue eyes land on him.

“Where,” Barnes rasps, and _shit_ , but his voice sounds terrible. Like sandpaper and gravel rolled into one. (Sam tries his best not to think about _why_ it sounds like that, but the sound of Barnes’ screams from the classified Soviet tapes he’s seen plays on loop in his head, an unending soundtrack he can’t escape.)

“You’re safe here, don’t worry,” Sam says, unfolding his arms in an attempt to look less threatening. “They won’t get to you here, promise.”

“St –” Barnes says, and swallows like it hurts to speak (which it probably does). “ _Steve_ , where–”

“He’s just coming,” Sam says, ducking his head out of the room to check. There’s no one in the warehouse. “Or not. But he will,” he adds quickly, when Barnes’ brow furrows and he hunches even more on himself.

“I’m… sorry,” Barnes says at length, and Sam startles, because he hadn’t been expecting that. He hadn’t been expecting conversation at all, to be perfectly honest.

“What?”

“Sorry,” Barnes says again, more insistently, like he needs Sam to understand. He gestures at Sam’s back. “For your wings, in DC. I didn’t mean to take them out.”

 “Oh,” Sam says, remembering the helicarrier and the world tilting alarmingly as Barnes placed a well-aimed kick in the centre of his chest, sending him over plummeting towards the Potomac. “Oh, no, that’s cool, man. Don’t worry about it. ‘Sides, Stark hooked me up with a new pair of wings, so it’s thanks to you that I got the upgrade.”

Barnes stares somewhere in the vicinity of Sam’s feet, his hair shadowing half his face. “Still – I shouldn’t have –”

“Bucky, hey,” Sam says, taking a step towards him, because Barnes’ hands (human and metal) are clenched into fists and he’s breathing shallowly, eyes squeezed shut to block out the memory of – what, Sam doesn’t know. But he has an idea, and it’s not good. “Can I call you Bucky?”

Barnes opens his eyes, stares dully at Sam. “’S my name, isn’t it?”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Sam says gently, close enough now that he can crouch down in front of Barnes, though he’s careful not to actually touch him. “You get to choose, now. You don’t have to be Bucky if it’s not who you are, you know.”

“I’m –” Barnes says, taking a breath. “I haven’t – I don’t know how.” _To choose_ , he doesn’t say. He looks down to the side, at the compactor and the weapon attached to his body, looking lost, and Sam’s heart clenches.

“It’s easy, see,” Sam says, “Do you _like_ it when people call you Bucky?”

“I – don’t think so,” Barnes says, immediately wincing and ducking his head, shoulders up like he’s expecting a blow. He relaxes marginally when it doesn’t come, peering up at Sam cautiously. “I – I _like_ ,” he says it like it’s foreign, the word an unfamiliar weight on his tongue, “– James.”

“Okay, James,” Sam says softly, reaching out a hand and clasping Barnes’ knee. Barnes shudders and stills. “It’s okay if you’re not who you used to be. People change.”

Barnes laughs: a bitter, broken sound. “How many others do you know who’ve served as HYDRA’s puppet for seventy years and then shows up and tries to kill his best friend twice, hm?”

“My point, James,” Sam says, “Is that you didn’t get to make those choices for a long time, and now you do, which is all anyone can do, really.”

The warehouse door clangs open and Steve enters with two duffel bags in hand. They fall to the floor when he sees that Barnes is awake.

“Buck!” he exclaims, crossing the room with impressively long strides and falling to his knees in front of Barnes. “Wait, which Bucky am I talking to?”

“Neither,” Sam says, nodding at Barnes when he glances at him for help.

“It’s, uh. James, actually,” Barnes says, almost apologetically, shooting Sam a look. Sam gives him a discreet thumbs-up behind Steve’s back. “I’m not – who I was, Steve. I’m not the Soldier, but I’m not the Bucky you knew. At least, not yet.”

Steve looks crestfallen for all of a second, before his expression smoothes over and he says, “Of course, James. Whatever you need.”

And Barnes turns to Sam, says, “ _Thank you_ ,” his shoulders slumping like a weight’s been taken off them, and Sam feels the ache in his chest (for Riley, for Barnes) ease just a little.

-

“Could you move your seat up?”

They’re in the car, and Steve’s outside, engrossed in his conversation with Sharon. Sam’s called shotgun, and for the past ten minutes has been steadily lowering the back of his seat to irritate Barnes.

Sam stifles a grin, turns to face the front. “No.”

Barnes grumbles behind him, and Sam thinks he’s won until he feels something digging painfully into the small of his back from behind.

He locks down and yelps, because that’s the hilt of a _kitchen knife,_ and – “James, where the _fuck_ did you get that.”

“Steve’s bag,” Barnes says, unperturbed. “He raided Walmart. Are you moving or not?”

“Fine, fine,” Sam mutters, easing the back of his seat up a fraction.

Barnes pokes the knife’s hilt more pointedly into the side of his ribs. Sam sighs, and eases it all the way up. Barnes lets out what sounds suspiciously like a contented purr, and when Sam glances in the rearview mirror, Barnes catches his eye and smirks.

“You know,” Sam says in a conversational tone, “A simple ‘thank you’ would suffice.”

Barnes’ face clouds over, his smile disappearing and a pained grimace taking its place. Sam watches as his grip on the knife tightens, his knuckles going white with the strain.

“James, hey,” he says, twisting round in his seat to face him. “Hey, man, you doin’ okay?”

Barnes makes no response, until Sam reaches out a slow, hesitating hand to rest on Barnes’ knee and he jumps, gaze darting up to meet Sam’s, wide-eyed and fearful.

“Готов выполнить,” Barnes says all of a sudden, and he’s no longer looking at Sam. Instead, his grip on the knife has loosened and he’s staring off into the distance, gaze blank and face oddly slack.

“James, c’mon,” Sam says, feeling the panic rising like a tide within him. He glances over his shoulder, out the windscreen, hoping for help from Steve. He finds the two of them glued to each other, Steve’s mouth on Sharon’s, completely oblivious to everything else around them, and on any other day Sam would be over the _moon_ that Captain Chastity’s finally getting some, but not now, not when he’s got an ex-HYDRA assassin who’s just been potentially reactivated from sleeper mode sitting in the backseat of their borrowed (stolen) car.

“I don’t, uh. Speak Russian,” Sam tries instead, turning back round to face Barnes, who’s still staring off into the equidistance with an alarmingly placid expression. “I can do a bit of Spanish, but that’s about it, amigo.”

Barnes lets loose a stream of Russian gibberish (there might have been a bit of German mixed in there) that’s lost on Sam, before switching seamlessly to English, “Ready to comply, sir,” although there’s an accent, faintly Eastern European, tinging his words.

“I’m not, I’m not your,” Sam says, feeling helpless. “But I’d appreciate it if you dropped the knife.”

A glance back outside shows that Steve and Sharon are, impossibly, _still_ plastered all over each other. “Steve,” he calls, rolling down the passenger-side window, “ _Steve_ , get your ass over here.”

Steve either doesn’t hear or pretends not to, as he continues kissing Sharon like his life and the future of America depend on it.

“Oh, for fuck’s sakes,” Sam groans, turning back round to face Barnes. He looks slightly more cognizant, and he’s let go of the kitchen knife, which now rests on the empty seat next to him, so at least there’s that.

“Can you believe this guy?” Sam says, jabbing his thumb back over his shoulder in Steve’s general direction. “Who does he think he is, making us all fugitives and yapping on about how time is short and then spending ten minutes kissing the first person who _doesn’t_ try killing him –”

“I – I didn’t try to kill him,” Barnes says, frowning, and Sam pauses in his tirade, because this is better, much better, than Russian or _ready to comply_. He’s so busy feeling relieved at Barnes’ reanimation that his words don’t register at first.

When they do, Sam does a double-take. “Wait, _what_ did you say?”

Barnes stares levelly at him, rolling his eyes a bit, and Sam gives himself a mental high-five because _yes_ , there’s the Barnes he knows (and kinda finds adorable, actually).

“I said,” Barnes says, looking annoyed that Sam’s making him repeat himself, “I didn’t try to kill Steve.”

Sam raises his eyebrows.

“Okay, fine,” Barnes relents, exhaling. “I might’ve tried to kill Steve _once_. But that was an accident.”

“Uh-huh,” Sam says, trying not to smile. Barnes’ defensiveness shouldn’t be cute, but it somehow is. Maybe it’s the hair, the way its uncut length shadows half his face, softening the sharp jut of his jaw; maybe it’s the way he holds himself (looser, shoulders relaxed in a way the Soldier can never be).

“Maybe twice, if you wanna be technical,” says Barnes, at the precise moment the door on the driver’s side opens and Steve slides in, face slightly flushed and lips slightly swollen. Sharon’s car is just pulling away; she raises a hand in farewell as she drives off.

“Technical about what?” Steve asks, craning his neck around and looking curiously at Barnes, at Sam, and back at Barnes again.

“Nothin’,” Barnes says, at the same time Sam says, “Cheeseburgers.”

Steve looks like he’s about to laugh, when his gaze falls on the kitchen knife on the seat next to Barnes, and a worried furrow creases his brow.

“Buc – _James_ ,” he says slowly, “Where’d that come from.”

“What?” Barnes asks innocently, sliding smoothly across the seats so the knife’s hidden from view.

Steve stays silent; Sam can feel the disapproval emanating from him in waves.

Apparently even HYDRA assassins cave when confronted with the full force of Captain America’s disappointment, however, because it can’t be more than four seconds later that Barnes mutters, “Took it before we left the warehouse. Sorry.”

Steve sighs, holding out a hand, into which Barnes places the knife, hilt-first.

“I’ll get you something better when we’re in Leipzig, kay?”

“You better,” Barnes says, folding his arms and turning to look out the window as Steve starts the car, kitchen knife safely stowed in the glove compartment.

Sam barely manages to keep his laughter in check, because these two act like they’re fucking _twelve_ , he swears. Then he wonders if this was how it used to be for them before the war (before HYDRA), and he quickly sobers.

-

“Okay, first of all, who decided this was a good idea?” Sam says, taking a bite of his burger. “You do know we’re breaking, like, international law, right?”

The diner door swings open and hot air rushes in. Sam glances surreptitiously under the rim of his cap at the front door; just a mother pushing her baby in a stroller, and from the uninterested scan she gives their table, they’re no more recognizable than any of the diner’s other customers.

“It’s the only way,” Steve says now, stubbornly, as he takes a mutinous sip of his coke (diet, of course). Why the dude thinks he even _needs_ diet coke is beyond Sam, but hey, he’s stuffing his face with two double cheeseburgers and a malt shake, so who’s he to judge.

“Maybe we should reconsider our options,” Sam says, reaching over to steal from Barnes’ cheese fries. He silently takes one of Sam’s in retaliation. “You know, before we go barging into Leipzig and stealing from Stark.”

“We’re running out of time, Sam,” Steve says. Barnes’ hand hovers over Steve’s onion rings. “James, eat your own goddamn fries.”

“Yours are better,” Barnes mutters mulishly, but he retracts his hand and goes back to picking at his own food instead. (Sam absolutely refuses to find it cute.)

“I’m just sayin’,” Sam says, swatting at Barnes’ wrist when his hand snakes over his fries. “Stark and Natasha’ve already signed, and we don’t know how many others have. Who knows, what if Nat manages to bring Banner in? We’ll be pulverized.”

“Steve’s right,” Barnes says, marking his first contribution to their discussion. “We need to get to the Soldiers before Zemo, and the only way’s if we go through Stark.”

Barnes’ hand drifts across the table again and Sam, amused, pushes his plate across with a, “Here, finish them.”

Barnes freezes, eyes glazing over with something Sam can’t identify, and just as Sam’s starting to panic, he says, disbelievingly (hopefully), “I – _earned_ it? I have the right?”

And Sam stiffens (he feels Steve visibly flinch next to him), hands unconsciously curling into fists because it’s half the programming and half James talking, and Sam is going to find the HYDRA or Soviet bastard who decided to engrave this into James’ mind and _kill_ them, for making James think (doubt, even for a second) that he needs to earn his fucking _right_ for food.

“Course you can,” he says, forcing himself to speak levelly. “It’s all yours, James,” and when Barnes continues staring at the proffered plate in disbelief, Sam stretches out a hand, taking Barnes’ wrist gently (Barnes startles, but doesn’t flinch) and placing it on the plate.

“Thanks,” Barnes says, gaze darting back and forth between Steve and Sam like he expects laughter (or worse, recrimination). When it doesn’t come he cautiously pinches a fry between two fingers and takes a bite.

“Anytime, buddy,” Sam says, watching as besides him, Steve’s hand tightens on the metal tabletop, leaving a hand-shaped dent in its surface.

“Let’s go,” Steve says, as soon as Barnes has liberated the last fry from the pile. He leaves the money under a bottle of ketchup and not-so-subtly uses a paper napkin to cover up the vandalism the diner’s table has sustained. “We’ve got a flight to catch.”

-

Stark’s team intercepts them at Leipzig but they’ve got Barton and Wanda (and that dipshit Lang, who Sam still hasn’t completely forgiven) so they do fairly well for themselves. That is, until Vision swoops in, incapacitates Wanda and somehow manages to blow a crater into the tarmac so deep even a Hulked out Banner would have trouble getting out of.

He takes off at a run (one of Stark’s repulsors had taken out his right wing), explosions ballooning behind him, Barnes at his side. It’s only when they reach the hangar, breathless and disoriented (well, at least Sam is), that they realize there’s only two of them.

“Steve, where’s Steve,” Barnes says, eyes wide and voice uncharacteristically shaky. He scans the airfield they’ve left behind them, gaze darting frantically from one fight to the next.

Vision and Wanda appear to have each other in some kind of mental headlock; Vision looks as strained as Sam’s ever seen him, and Wanda. There are crimson sparks arcing along her hands and she looks ready to _kill_. Barton and Mr. Seriously-Into-Cats are battling it out on the wing of a nearby jet, and Lang (back to normal human size) appears to have gotten himself into a rather sticky (haha, Sam, _ha_ ) situation with the Parker kid, with synthetic webs holding him captive against a plane engine. Sam watches as Lang gets one hand free and gives Parker the finger.

And Steve –

Steve’s on the far side of the field, bloodied and bruised but getting up time and time again to counter Stark’s blows. Stark’s not going easy on him, either: Steve’s shield lies just out of reach, and each time Steve hits the ground, it takes him longer to get up.

“ _Sam_ , we have to help,” Barnes says, terror and urgency in his voice. “Steve needs our help –”

“Whoa, whoa, hey,” Sam says, grabbing Barnes’ shoulder to stop him. “If we go out there, we’re not gonna make it back. Siberia’s our priority, remember?”

Barnes’ shoulders slump, and Sam pushes aside the ache in his chest (for Barnes, for Steve), forces himself to focus on the task at hand.

“Steve’s – he can take care of himself,” he says, and squeezes Barnes’ shoulder (his left one, he realizes belatedly), “He’d want us to keep going.”

And Barnes takes a deep breath, glances back at Steve, who’s getting to his feet once more, fists and head raised, and he says, “Okay.”

-

“Am I really worth this?” Barnes asks, when they’re halfway to Siberia and Sam’s just reconciled himself to enduring a long, painfully awkward flight in absolute silence.

Sam doesn’t hesitate, “Yes.”

Barnes shifts in the seat behind him. “ _How_?” he asks, and it’s plaintive; sincere. Like it’s inconceivable to him that anyone could be (that _he_ could be) worth defying international law for.

“Because you didn’t do any of those things, James,” Sam says, letting some of his VA training seep into his tone. Barnes sounds like he needs it. “It might’ve been you holding the gun, but it was HYDRA pulling the trigger.”

“Doesn’t change the fact I _did_ it though, does it,” Barnes says, self-deprecating and bitter. “I coulda tried harder to, to resist. I broke so _easily_. I think even Zola was surprised.” He laughs, glass shards scraping, discordant, over harp-strings. Sam can tell he had a beautiful laugh, once. Full-throated and affectionate; now it’s just raw, scraped-open emptiness. (Sam wonders what else HYDRA’s taken away from him, and feels the anger rising once more.)

“James, listen,” Sam says, twisting around in his seat to look him in the eye, “It makes all the difference. Steve knows it, and so do I. And so does everyone fighting for us at the airport. Why else d’you think we’re helping you?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Barnes says, a small grin curling the edges of his lips. “My charming good looks and heroic physique?”

Sam rolls his eyes, turning back to face the front. “One serious conversation with you, that’s all I ask. _Honestly_.”

“You love it,” Barnes smirks, leaning back in his seat, and Sam doesn’t have to turn to know he’s looking far too pleased with himself than the situation warrants.

And the thing is, Sam realizes, as he pulls the plane into a slow descent across the snowy mountaintops in Siberia, he kind of _does_.

-

Stark shows up, repulsors blazing, and scares the crap out of Sam and James, because when _isn’t_ Stark down for anything involving pomp and grandiose entrances.

James doesn’t bother lowering his rifle. “Is Steve –”

“Your boyfriend’s fine,” Stark says, holding up a placating hand. It’s made less reassuring by the fact that his repulsors are still on and volatile. “Not to worry. Hey, Robocop, could you maybe not point a loaded firearm at my face when I’m talking, it’s – very distracting.”

“Not ‘til you put yours down, I’m not,” James snaps. (Sam sighs; James might be nearing a hundred but sometimes he acts like a five-year-old.)

“Wha – oh, these,” Stark says, and smiles sheepishly before turning the repulsors off. They fade to a dull, metallic blue wink in the semi-darkness of the HYDRA base. “Whoops, sorry. I’d forgotten about them.”

Sam’s just closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief that this is all resolved, now, that maybe they can quickly stop Zemo from getting at HYDRA’s _other_ Winter Soldier programme, then they can get the hell out of dodge, and Stark will pull some strings with Ross and the UN, and this will all be behind them.

Except Fate is evidently feeling particularly vicious today, because Zemo turns up to the party without an invite and hijacks HYDRA’s computer system, manipulating the grainy screen in front of them.

“When your empire crumbles from the inside out, then, and _only then_ , will I stop,” Zemo murmurs, grinning manically at them from the safety of the control room.

“ _No, please_ –” a woman’s voice sounds from the screen, and Sam turns to find the wreckage of a car, its side-door wrenched apart, and the Winter Soldier slowly pummeling a besuited man, (presumably) his distraught wife beside her.

Stark goes rigid beside him, and it’s only when the man’s wife screams out an anguished, “ _Howard, no!_ ” that Sam realizes who they are.

“I’m gonna, I’m gonna _kill_ you,” Stark yells, turning, wild and frenzied, towards James.

He launches himself at James, who brings his left arm up to deflect the repulsor blast just in time. They grapple, Stark slamming James against the far wall, the suit giving him a vice-like grip around James’ throat.

Sam casts around for something, _anything_ , and ends up slinging his own pack off his shoulders and bringing it down on the back of Stark’s neck, just visible over his suit’s collar.

The shock loosens Stark’s grip and James gasps, one hand massaging his throat as he eases air back into his lungs. “Still – think I’m – worth – all this?” he chokes out, eyes watering and voice raw.

Sam glances up, meets James’ gaze just as Stark straightens, levels his repulsors once more, aiming straight at James’ chest, and is barely aware he’s made the decision until he’s moving, body curving protectively over James’ as the blast hits.

“ _Yes_ ,” he says nonetheless, vision fuzzing with pain. “You are,” he says, and (very heroically) collapses forward onto James’ chest.

-

**_2 days later_ **

“Fuckin’ finally, Wilson,” is the first thing Sam hears when he re-surfaces.

He wakes up to a motherfucker of a headache, an IV drip attached to his hand, and James sitting by his bed. James’ hand (his right) twitches minutely where it’s resting on the starched sheets, two inches away from Sam’s left, like James’d been holding his hand and hurriedly let go moments ago, and Sam has to bite his lip to stop his smile.

“Took you long enough,” James mutters, not meeting his eyes. The plates of his arm whir of their own volition. He says, tone muted and quiet, “You shouldn’t have –”

“Don’t tell me what I shouldn’t have done, Barnes,” Sam says, and groans as he sits up. His back aches, a constant reminder of Stark’s weaponry/technology. “Was my own choice and you don’t get to tell me what to do with my life.”

James’ teeth click together in frustration. “Not when you decide to throw it away for something like – for someone like –” He runs a hand through his hair in frustration, the _me_ implicit in his words.

“Look, James,” Sam says, reaching across the covers to grasp James’ (left) wrist. He flinches, jerks, but doesn’t pull away. “What I said before, on the jet, I meant it. You didn’t have a choice when you did those things –”

“Killed those people, you mean,” James says, hollow.

“No, HYDRA did,” Sam says, because he needs James to understand (to _see_ ), “You’re not to blame for the last 70 years, or any of this. And _fuck_ Stark,” he says suddenly, emphatically, “And anyone else who’s thought for even a second that you might be, because they don’t know you, not like I,” he swallows his last words, unsure.

James tilts his head to one side, corner of his mouth curling in amusement. “Oh, and you do, Wilson?”

And Sam shakes his head, thinks _fuck this_ , and tugs hard on James’ wrist. James goes easily, and they meet somewhere in the middle, James’ knee planted on the side of Sam’s bed, the sheets tangling Sam’s legs when he shifts, their mouths slotting together seamlessly, and Sam would say his universe tilts on its axis at that particular moment, but he’s pretty sure it’s just the morphine in his system talking.

Nevertheless, he cards a hand through James’ hair (it’s as soft as it looks), and James makes a pleased, guttural sound, and leans into the touch like an overlarge housecat.

“Ahem,” someone says from the doorway, pointedly clearing their throat.

Sam opens his eyes (when did he close them?) to find Steve lounging on the threshold, eyes averted and cheeks tinted a patriotic red, like _he’s_ the one caught making out.

“Steve? _Steve,_ ” James says, across the room in 0.3 seconds and hovering awkwardly in front of his friend, rocking back on his heels like he isn’t sure what’s allowed and what’s not.

Steve solves the problem by pulling James into (what looks like) a crushing hug, and James grumbles but Sam can tell from the way his eyes slide closed that he likes it. (Dude is _seriously_ deprived of human contact, but Sam can always rectify that.)

James pulls back to look Steve in the eye and says, seriously, “You should go.”

Steve’s eyebrows appear in danger of disappearing into his hairline. “I should?”

“Yeah, Wilson and I were in the middle of somethin’,” James says, rather unapologetically, and Sam grins when that elicits another blush from America’s poster boy for – well, everything, really.

“I’ll, uh. Leave you guys to it then,” Steve says, pointedly not looking at the mussed sheets on Sam’s bed ( _ha,_ Steve has no idea) and has the courtesy to shut the door behind him when he leaves.

“Where were we,” James murmurs, climbing back onto Sam’s bed and leaning forward to press a kiss into the hollow of Sam’s throat.

“You tell me,” Sam mutters, pulling James up by his collar and tilting so their foreheads are pressed together. “Oh, and one more thing,” he says gravely, “If we do this –”

James pulls back, face shuttered and gaze apprehensive. He clenches his fist, glances at the window like he’s contemplating escape, and back again. “It’s alright if you don’t, Wilson, I. I’ll understand.”

“What? No,” Sam says, and James’ eyes flicker back up to his, tense and hopeful. (Sam wants to find every single HYDRA agent who’s told him he isn’t worth shit and crush them under his boot.) “If we do this, man, just call me Sam.”

“Oh,” James says, eyes widening in understanding. He shifts on the bed, crowding Sam back against the bedframe. He leans in til their noses are bumping. “Okay.”

From that point on, James _does_ call him Sam – in between kisses, in texts, across the Avengers’ group comms, in bed at night (he shouts it, then, so much that Steve decides to get earplugs), and despite the mutinous glares Steve gives them every morning at breakfast, Sam thinks it’s rather a small concession to make, in exchange for a life he didn’t know could get this good.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading y'all and drop me a comment if you liked it(:
> 
> p.s. this is my first sam/bucky i'm usually much more of a stucky person but civil war's destroyed any and all hopes i've ever had for the russos and the 'relationship development' ca:cw was meant to bring to the steve-bucky dynamic. like obvs i'm still hella trash for stucky BUT after the civil war disillusionment i just though fuck this and also because seb and mackie's relationship irl is too cute to handle like, /like/ chocolaccino and vanilla ice; sexy seabass and the mack attack are you /fucking/ kidding me jfc 
> 
> those two are the cutest and tbh, the one (slightly) good thing civil war's brought has been the relationship dynamic between sam and bucky bc let's face it steve and sharon have 0 chemistry and marvel can shove its heternormative pretentiousness up its ass i'm just so a n g r y
> 
> but yeah that's why sam/bucky's my priority rn lemme know what you think
> 
> have a good day wherever you're at y'all and thanks again :3 love you guys <3


End file.
